


Those Who Favor Fire

by Trixen



Category: Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 05:34:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16486805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixen/pseuds/Trixen
Summary: Taylor has a type.Everyone knows it (no one talks about it).





	Those Who Favor Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Some say the world will end in fire,   
> Some say in ice.   
> From what I’ve tasted of desire   
> I hold with those who favor fire.  
> \- Robert Frost

 

Taylor has a type.

 

Everyone knows it, and no one acknowledges it. Like a secret that isn't so much hidden, but laid gently on the surface of things, the skin on coffee left out too long, transparent curtains against white walls. 

 

It's the same as how no one will say _Red_ was about Dianna. Or that _Reputation_  was pure Karlie. Seems silly to pretend otherwise, but aren't most kingdoms built on convenient half-truths and whispers? Sometimes, late at night, when the fire's dying and Instagram is a field of bombs, Taylor wonders who the next album will be about.

 

Will another blonde tornado enter her life, wreck her so very sweetly, so very girlishly? Or will there be no one new, will it be a heartbreak wrapped in a bow like  _1989_? The choices seem endless, a record on loop. 

 

Because she has a type, always has.

 

It's exhausting wondering if she always will.

 

~

 

"Dear Diary," Taylor says out loud to the empty room. She wants to get something out into the atmosphere, and in turn, invite the atmosphere back in. She tests the air with her words, ones she uses often to tease the universe, crack in the light, let the big magic do its worst. Or its best, as the case may be. 

 

Because, frankly, if she doesn't get some song-writing done soon, she's _toast_.

 

And not the crunchy-munchy kind from Beowulf's in the West Village either.

 

Nope, she's like hotel toast. Burnt, no butter. Dried out, used up, tossed in the trash with the rest of the rejected breakfasts. 

 

She's lying on the carpet of her TV room. It doesn't have a TV but she calls it that anyway. Karls started it, back in the day, and then Gigi thought it was funny, and away they went. So now it's the TV room and really it's just blush white carpet that cost a zillion dollars (Olivia's been sick on it twice, Taylor thinks out of spite), squashy couches, guitars in every corner, stacks of inky writing paper, and a bar that's stocked with so much wine Taylor could open a wine shop if she even knew how. Which she doesn't. But it's where she does her best thinking (maybe the lack of TV and ergo, lack of Netflix contributes to that particular phenomenon), and it's where she's written some of her best songs.

 

It's also where Karlie liked to fuck the most (remembering that is like a sweet stab to the stomach, so Taylor prefers to pretend it didn't happen)

 

(But if she pretends it didn't happen, the music doesn't get written, so)

 

(So her life is remembering)

 

The taste of Karlie, there, pink and salt, and the way she'd finger fuck Taylor until she quite literally didn't know her own name, didn't know anything but the building pressure and hurt in her body, like her orgasm was trying to escape, trying to climb the walls, legs splayed, her nipples pinpricks, her mouth smeared over Karlie's, the little sounds in her throat like screams unfurling.

 

(This is why she has to ration herself)

 

(Because Karlie is engaged)

 

The thought stays in parenthesis, where it belongs. Taylor thinks if she lets it out of its confines, it might just eat her alive. The idea of Karlie _fucking_ Kloss marrying a man is so alien that it's almost (not quite) hilarious. Karlie, who spoke pussy better than anyone she's ever met. Karlie, who fucked every curious model she could wrap her mile-long legs around. Karlie, Karlie, Karlie. Her name is something Taylor doesn't put in parenthesis, because it hurts less if she says it, lets it breathe, and be in the universe.

 

Hell, maybe if she keeps on it, the universe will feel sorry for her and spit back a song, fully-formed, like a baby kitten, mewling and new. 

 

She unfolds herself from the floor, stands, wanders over to the bar. Her glasses are like drops of balloon-glass, impossibly light and long-stemmed. They were a gift from Kerry Washington after she'd heard Taylor loved Scandal (she didn't love Scandal). She does love the glasses, and she also likes sipping a la the other Olivia. Popcorn optional. It occurs to her that almost every bottle of wine she owns was a gift at some point or another (why do celebrities get so many presents, it's something to be pondered) and so she goes for the big guns. She opens a bottle that Oprah gave her a few Christmases ago. It has to be decent, after all, it's _Oprah_ , and if there's one God Taylor trusts, it's O.

 

The wine is the colour of rubies and fills her throat and her belly with warm. She hasn't eaten tonight. Not even because she's dieting (well not ONLY because she's dieting). Food just doesn't sound like something to be bothered with. She contemplates Postmating chicken fingers. Only contemplates because, diet.

 

God, why is this all getting away from her? The pen feels heavier than normal, and her piano sits accusingly in the corner, and this was supposed to be one of the nights where she creates alone - so why does she wish the room was full of people? Why does she wish she was surrounded? At this point, Joe would be an improvement - even if all he wants to talk about is his latest boyfriend - and it occurs to her that that might be the saddest thought she's ever had. If she's reached a point where her lovely - albeit boring as fuck - beard is the company she's craving, maybe there's something wrong? Nothing against Joe - he is required to be boring, contractually speaking - it's annoying when her "boyfriends" are interesting to fans or the media or anyone else. But couldn't he be good company in private at least?

 

Maybe talk about something other than dick?

 

_Gross._

 

"Taylor," she says out loud. She's standing by the bar, with the glass in her hand, lips stained pink.  _Dear Diary_ just isn't going to cut it tonight. "Taylor, it's time to think of a theme. You know it, I know it... well, I mean, you're me so of course you do, but that's beside the point. We both get this, right? The theme thing? Because it has to happen. It could be anything. It doesn't have to be a person, babe. It could be... like, trees. Swiftlets. Cats. It could be... beards and how forsake-all-life _dull_ they are. It could be what a colossal douche Calvin turned out to be or even about how much you like not being so thin because you're not exhausted and tired and cranky pants all the time. Right?" She beseeches the universe. "RIGHT?"

 

No one answers.

 

Not the big magic.

 

Not even the little magic.

 

Instead, Meredith wanders into the room. She looks pissed off and vaguely constipated. But she isn't, because Taylor sometimes still cleans out the litter box (it makes her feel like a regular person, and she fully gets how assholish that is) so maybe she's just sensing the room's vibes. Olivia's following her. Since Olivia spends most nights grooming herself, clearly the cats are staging an intervention. 

 

"I don't need one," she says to them. Their eyes are huge and unblinking. "No, seriously. SERIOUSLY you guys, STOP. I'm sorry, I shouldn't use that tone but honestly, stop because this isn't cool."

 

She curls up on the couch, bringing the wine and leaving the blank sheets of paper sprawled on the carpet, as white and untouched as her piano's keys. She thinks about drawing a brainstorm bubble or even a chart. She thinks about texting Dianna just to see what would happen. Even though Dianna is basically lesbian married and also pretends Taylor doesn't exist, which, she doesn't really blame her exactly, but still. Rude. She thinks about texting Joe and asking for his input. ( _Ermm, maybe you could just come out_?) Though why he'd want her to do that when he'd have to seek other gainful employment is a mystery. 

 

Mystery.

 

She thinks about that word. About its origins, about where it came from, or where it's going. About the idea of being mysterious. She pulls up the dictionary on her phone. 

 

mys·te·ri·ous

/məˈstirēəs/

adjective

1.

difficult or impossible to understand, explain, or identify.

"his colleague had vanished in mysterious circumstances"

_synonyms:    puzzling, strange, peculiar, curious, funny, queer, odd, weird, bizarre, mystifying, inexplicable, baffling, perplexing, incomprehensible, unexplainable, unfathomable_

"he vanished in mysterious circumstances"

2.

_(of a person) deliberately enigmatic._

"she was mysterious about herself but said plenty about her husband"

 

Those words. Queer. Baffling. She thinks of foreign bazaars, nights beneath skies awash with starlight, she thinks of her life, the enigma wrapped in a bow, vanishing into herself, into apartments, behind flowering walls, into people, into Taylors upon Taylors.

 

What if this one was about that?

 

Because if there's anything she knows about, knows down to her blood, it's being the kind of person who can morph into a puzzle at the snap of fingers. She knows how to send clues, how to wave red flags in front of bulls, knows who needs their pockets lined, knows where the bodies are buried. She keeps maps of where she put 'em after all. What if the central theme of the next album isn't a person or a relationship or even a feeling. What if it's about the fact that even when she stood on her own reputation, it was still a chimera?

 

It wasn't the whole picture, not even close.

 

She picks up her pen, puts down her wine. She writes the words in big bold letters, ink dripping.

 

**MAGICIAN.**  

 

And finally, the universe whispers back.

 

Yes, Taylor. _Yes_.

 


End file.
